So Obama wants a report on Russian activity in influencing the US election.

I am going to guess we will never drr a report on the U.S. involvement in trying to influence the election in Egypt, or Iraq, Pakistan, India or in Poland or the many other countries were the U.S has poured millions of dollars to influence regime change from behind the scenes.

So you will have to excuse me at the hypocritical report being ushered because of everyone crying foul over this year election results when the U.S. has been meddling in other countries elections and governments for years

I am sure their are copyright holders that are pushing South Korea towards making this criminal when it is no where near it IMHO.

We are seeing copyright holder and their associations like the MPAA RIAA, BRIEN etc etc trying to get harsher punishment and turn what should be civil cases into criminal ones, and this is repeating itself all over.

Britian is a primary example of taking turning a civil matter now into a criminal one with penalties of up to 10 years for copyright Infringement. You can seriously assault someone causing bodily harm and get off easier

In the US copyright groups have turned the US DOJ and its Law Enforcement agencies into their private prosecution arm to achieve results that they never could via a civil case. The dotcom case and the one kick ass torrents case with the Ukrainian citizen in a polish jail. Copyright groups have taken and twisted copyright infringement and somehow have managed to convince the USDOJ that all these criminal elements to justify charges have arisen out of the copyright act.

Russia to has now gotten into this act as has Australia and these is all do to copyright holder rights groups throwing money all over and basically getting government officials to push the changes they want to the various countries copyright laws to make it all criminal.

Did these rights groups ever think that maybe there business models are causing a large part of the problem when it comes to protectionism and licensing. We have seen DRM that has cause all sorts of issues from locking people out of games that they legally bought to making them malfunction to DRM causing play-ability issues and on and on.

Once again leave it for rights holders and their trade groups to go totally overboard and piss the public off even more

Maybe Marsha and Clinton can go and visit China and see how they sensor what the Chinese Government use their Great Firewall to filter what it deems offensive, ooh and maybe they can pick up some tips on how they stifle free speech as well, and when Marsha and Hillary get back they can see if Obama can roll back some of those pesky right things in the Constitution.

If Marsha and Hillary are so concerned about fake news and all the other shit that goes on in the elections and so concerned about a fair race lets talk about the DNC sabotaging Bernie Sanders campaign and repeatedly lying about the fact when Sanders was complaining about just that, lets talk about all the dirt digging that both Trump and Clinton served up about one another.

Should we bring up all the misleading ads that played out not only in the POTUS race but in congressional and state seat riding's or what about all the supposed coalition groups that pop up every fucking election and are used as fronts to do the dirty work that the candidates don't want the blood on their hands from.

Honestly the hypocritical pandering about fake news isn't the only B.S. being touted here. Elections have always been a dirty cesspool to get into office and to stay there and nothing seems to be off limits when it comes to dirty tactics. Clinton and Trump had their dirty laundry aired as did others before them and other will well after them because it is win at all cost, and it has been that way for decades.

All the money that is raised to get someone into the running, all the money that is raised to support them in the race is way way more than the candidate will ever make in salary, so we all know that these candidates win or lose are going to owe people for supporting them, are going to owe companies for backing them.

The citizens are pawns in the election game candidates will wax on and on about how they want to make things better for the citizens and the government and to make the country better, but do they really? No, it's lip service to get in the door and then the citizens are long forgotten except the occasional pet pork barrel project to pacify the voters and make it look like their elected representative did something for their betterment, all while serving those that backed them and taking as much money as they can thru PAC's and any other way legally possible while bending over backwards to do their backers bidding at the expense of the taxpayer.

Silk road had a ton of badness on it and was more than engaged in illegal activities and that fact isn't in dispute while Ulbricht played a huge part of being the head of it and is no saint, the fact that Law Enforcement personnel connected to it have been charge and found guilty of crimes is more than troubling.

How is that the trial Judge who heard this case doesn't believe that the goverment and the Law Enforcement agencies who worked on the case and gathered the evidence used to prosecute Ulbricht can honestly say that this case wasn't tainted and that the evidence isn't questionable?

This case was and is a fucking mess. You have corrupt Law Enforcement agents who used their knowledge and how this case was being investigated to commit crimes in which they were prosecuted for and more and more details seem to show that the evidence gathered is questionable due to all the misconduct going on while the investigation was ongoing.

I am no way a fan of Ulbricht's what he was doing was more than criminal and is in no way innocent, but the illegal shit that has gone on in his case is by agents connected to the case is more than enough to raise serious questions about the evidence used to prosecute him and Ulbricht deserves to have an appeal heard and let the appellate court have the details of what has transpired with Agents being prosecuted and the unanswered questions as to how the evidence against Ulbricht shouldn't be tossed considering the revelations that have been brought to light the last while.

The whole case is honestly in the toilet and for the courts to let Ulbricht's conviction stand as more and more questionable details and illegal conduct by law enforcement comes is a travesty.

Does Ulbricht deserve to be punished for the illegal activities that he helped foster at Silk Road, yes he does, but not with the evidence and due to the illegal conduct conducted in the course of the investigation by agents involved with the case.

Another court ruling that seems to let the goverment off violating a persons rights under the constitution.

The Judges are there to ensure that Law Enforcement and the Government is following the letter of the law in cases brought before it and the Judges are there to be impartial, however this does not seem to be the case.

More and more it seems the Judges are ignoring violations of the law and a persons rights afforded to them in the constitution and bending over backwards to help Law Enforcement and the Government in keeping the case alive.

This very troubling that serious breach of an accused constitutional rights can be trampled on by the Government and it's law enforcement agencies and the court seems more than willing to overlook it, sorry but that is the court and it's Judges far from being impartial.

The lines between a violation of an accused rights under the constitution seem to be getting obliterated more and more and the courts are to blame for this mess.

More and more the Government, Law Enforcement agencies seem more than willing to break the law to achieve their goals and our rights are being eroded and violated.

How is a person supposed to believe when they are charged and are being brought to court that they will get a fair trial when the court is tilting the tables in the governments favor? The court has gone from being an impartial part of the process to being biased against an accused.

If the courts and it's Judges can not follow the statutes of the law and the laws of the constitution that is afforded to an accused, then the judicial system and peoples faith in it to be treated equally is broken and the right to a fair trial is nothing more than a myth.

Ugh. Another judge ruling in difference of the ruling that the First Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled on in Glik v. Cunniffe 655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011) that a citizen has the right to video public officials (Police ) in a public placehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glik_v._Cunniffe

Law Enforcement seems to be of the belief that they can stop and arrest you for recording them anytime they want and if your rights are violated in the process and you were not interfering with them while they were doing their thing then that's more than enough justification for them.

Honestly Law Enforcement seems to be okay with recording you even while you dont realize it (dash cams, body cams) and that is the only way it should be. The mere fact that people nowadays are videoing encounters with Law Enforcement is because there is so much abuse of power by police against citizens and trumped up charges, assaults, planting of evidence, false accusations against citizens it is the citizens way of fighting back by videoing encounters.

Abuses by Police are only getting more notice nowadays because of citizens video taping police encounters, you can not trust the police when body cam and dash cam footage of an encounter with someone leads to questions of what occurred because how many times have we heard of the dash cams being turned off or footage being "lost' or body cam not recorded because of a "malfunction" or footage being deleted or lost.

How many times have Law Enforcement personnel flat out lied in their report about what occurred and some one charged with a crime they didn't even commit, and I wont even bring up where people have been shot by police and the police account of what happened doesn't jive with a recording some citizen took.

Law Enforcement protects it's own, and it is always that way unless you can prove otherwise and lets face it a court is going to take a cops version of events over your version of events because the police officer is deemed automatically more credible.

If you have video shot by someone else and it back up your version of events Law Enforcemnt still denies it half the time and loves to use the "the video doesnt tell the whole story" line. Like gag me with a spoon with that shit.

It is time for SCOUTUS to get off their ass and rule on the issue for once and all because the various courts judges and states seem to all be going by a mixed bag of rulings or rulings that are being ignored by Law Enforcement because they can be and courts have rulings that are all over the map and that Law Enforcemnt seems to be making up their own version of the rulings and abusing peoples rights with false charges all to get someone to stop taping them.

The various appellate courts seem to have forgotten what a person's right are under the Constitution and have made a mix of rulings of what Law Enforcement entities can and cant do and even when the courts have been shown that a person rights have been violated have let that violation not effect a case, which has only muddied where the line is drawn between a violation and non violation of a person rights.

Law Enforcement knows full well that Stigrays hoover up way more information than they would be able to get from a pen register application to the court.

The Fact that Law Enforcement agencies are specifically hiding a Stingray's use unless a defense counsel stumbles upon it or suspect's that a Stingray was used just further proves the point that the prosecution and Law Enforcement agencies are withholding evidence that a Defendant and his counsel have a legal right to.

The fact that Prosecutors and Federal law Enforcement agencies and police departments across the U.S. are being specifically told not to reveal a Stingray's use and to put forth that the evidence gathered from a Stingrays use came from "other sources " is intentionally lying to the defense counsel and the court and not providing full disclosure of the evidence and is a violation of the defendants criminal and constitutional rights, not to mention a violation of the rules of ethics governing an officer of the court.

This gives the prosecution and government a serious advantage and unfair one and intentionally hinders the defense at being able to challenge the evidence when such a crucial piece of disclosure is missing.

The fact that the courts are saying "yeah it was a violation but that's okay" Just goes to show you how broken the Justice system is. The courts are here to be impartial and to rule according to the letter of the law that they are sworn to uphold. Since when did peoples constitutional and criminal rights be up for a spin the bottle type of decision making.

The various rulings from the courts and appellate courts across the U.S.has made the use of Stingray such a fucking mess it isn't even funny and the SCOTUS bares some responsibility in this as well for not making a ruling that is clear cut and not this one that seems to be interpretated by Law Enforcement agencies and the goverment however it seems fit.

If the pen registers dont fit the rules governing trap and trace warrants then the US DOJ and the various state AG's need to petition the senate and congress to bring the laws into the 21st century. The Government should not be allowed to mislead defendants and the courts by outright lying and deceiving the court about how it is obtaining evidence that it puts forth

Well no one wants to say told you so but in this case there is a genuine dispute that Tidal could stream all of Prince's music.

Everyone is friendly until they feel they arent getting paid. Prince estate has said that Tidal does not have a license for all of Prince music and that the license is only for certain music titles.

No system is going to be lawsuit free it just isnt possible, so disputes are going to happen and this case is no different with the exception of what and how the artists who signed on with tidal would be treated. Apparently those very word have come back to haunt Jay Z

This is basically presenting fraudulent and forged documents to the court, there is no way around it. Ruddie should be charged and brought to the various state courts where he filed these lawsuits to face charges.

There is more than a clear pattern of criminal intent here to justify charging him IMHO. Obviously Ruddie took a lot of time to examine the various state statues and their deadlines for filing these types of lawsuits specifically to abuse them.

The court itself shares some blame in that they took everything at face value and rubber stamped it without doing any real due diligence of the the facts in the com,plaint or the parties named in the lawsuit and how this settlement was agreed to.

I suspect Ruddie knowing the courts are overburden with crap that Ruddie knew that there really wouldnt be an real examination of the fact or parties to the lawsuits and that it would be rubber stamped.

Ruddie should be facing some federal charges for these suits as he has done this across many states. I am sure the companies and people who signed these contracts with Ruddie will be more than willing to testify to save their own skin.

I imagine Ruddie will be very very hard to find soon as I am sure he must know that with Levy on his case, that he wont be able to get away from this fraud so easily

Theranos obviously has not lived up to the hype they promised Walgreens and others that their revolutionary product would be.

The mere fact that the FDA wouldn't grant nor accept Theranos devices with a passing mark tells the whole story that something was amiss.

Even the scientific community was skeptical of Theranos climas that their magic box would do what Theranos claimed it would but yet Theranos declined to let anyone see testing results or let anyone have access to the magic box to conduct their own testing to see if the device worked.

Holmes IMHO is just an egomaniac who just cant concede that her magic box never did work and never will work and the mere fact that she is hanging in at Theranos while appealing just goes to show you that she will never admit to the failure and that having her still at the helm of whatever Theranos does means that people will be skeptical of any claims of innovation in any device or testing procedures Theranos comes up with.

Looking at Theranos and the people on the board seems like a version of show and tell as in that Theranos is saying we have all these important people on our board and they would be here if we weren't doing something revolutionary. Tis is nothing but a dog and pony show as of now.

Holmes name will always be associated with Theranos and now with it's failure. Even after the fact Theranos stated they would present to the scientific community that Theranos testing did work and Holmes would answer questions about Theranos magic box at the scientific conference a whjile back, it came off leaving the scientific community with more questions and doubts to Theranos and Holmes claims that the magic box worked.

Holmes outght to take her money and go live a quiet life, her career as a CEO of anything is over and her magic box is dead and should never be rectified again. Theranos as going concern is nothing but a waste of money and anything that company puts forward will always be heavily scrutinized and met with a shrug do to their past failures to live up to their claims with research that back up what they say and devices that actual delivers the results.

Holmes seems like someone who is destined to go down with the ship much like many others have when they have not been able to deliver what it's organisation has promised.

No way in hell would Obama pardon Snowden. Could you imagine the outrage in the various levels of Law Enforcement in the Government if Obama pardoned Snowden for the information that has been leaked to the press

The Obama administration has gone after and punished more whistle blowers than any other administration in U.S. history and that is saying a lot considering who has sat in the White House.

Manning is in a U.S Military prison, and Snowden would be in a Super Max if the U.S had been able to latch onto him and that is for sure, there is no way Snowden would get a Pardon from Obama.

Snowden opened a lot of peoples eyes with what he leaked to the press, capabilities that US Law Enforcement agencies that were unknown to many and the depth of the ability to capture information the likes have never been seen other than in movies.

Snowden faces living in exile for many many years unfortunately unless he volunteers to come back to the U.S. and I dont think he would relish the thought at coming back to languish in a U.S. Prison for what could be the rest of his life for doing what many see as waking people up to the fact that your privacy doesn't exist it is just an illusion.

Additional fess are just another way for the Cable & Telco's to pick the subscribers pocket. This has been going for years because the Cable * Telco's know they can get away with it to bring in more revenue.

As a customer you can see why people cancel or dump channels they dont use to save money on their bill and these Fee's are the way for the Telco's to be sneaky about generating more revenue and a lot of these charges are made to look like these are mandatory charges that the Cable & Telco's has to recoup and most people are oblivious to the fact that this is the Cable & Telco's doing this and not any Federal or state agency mandated charge.

The Cable & Telco's wonder why people are cord cutting, and it is because everyone has a limit of what they believe is reasonable to pay, but people have limits and gouging the customer with made up fees and contract pricing for service that can change at the Cable & Telco's whim are just examples of an industry that is cannibalizing itself with high stupidity and pricing itself out of exsistance

While the Telco's and ISP's would love to see a rollback in policy and be allowed to fuck the consumer carte-blanche like they are already doing , they ought to remember how the people and a lot of Internet companies came strongly out against these very changes.

Trump would be well advised that the SOPA style rage that came out against SOPA may rear it's head once again if the Telco & ISP's try to screw the public once again, citizens will definitely be pissed in ways that Trump wouldnt like if he allows the ISP's & Telco's to gouge the consumer any further.

There is plenty of blame to go around in the whole mess when its comes to buying tickets to a an events from any ticket seller.

Ticketmaster knows there are bots out there buying tickets but how much do you really think they care if bots are buying tickets from them? Not too much. The tickets still get sold. Think about this, Ticket master still gets to gouge the purchaser of 8 dollars for their "service fee" whether you are a human or a bot buying tickets.

Now you think about the facility a concert or event is at in your city and how many seats that venues holds and do the math, Ticketmaster makes out like a bandit.

Ticketmaster and other ticket brokers know that bots have been buying tickets for a long time and as much as they profess to want to eliminate bots and make sure purchaser have a fair shot at buying tickets do you really believe they care that much, I sure dont.

Ticket master and other ticket brokers make more than enough cash to invest in the technology IT wise to clamp down on the issue but why do they want to spend the money when they are making bank regardless? Do they care if a customer complains to a point yes, but if you protest and say well I ain't paying to go to that show or event, they arent worried they know they will still get the money from elsewhere.

Not only that but Ticketmaster started their own ticket broker site to help buyers sell tickets called TicketsNow. That is a re-seller site, so the very company that sold you a ticket that you couldn't use (or never planned to) is more than willing to help you scalp that ticket for some fees to the seller and buyer, so talk about irony!

The concret promoters like Live Nation and the rest are not exactly innocent wither. The Promoters are the ones that strike deal with Credit Card Companies like American Express for example that allow the folks who have an American Express to get Tickets pre-sale in say for example the first 8 rows on the floor of a concert and the promoters strike that deal for a percentage.

The promoter and the artist/band or Team also does this with the packages that go to fan clubs that your average joe pays to be a part of to enable them to get those fan package for so much cash.

So there is plenty of people with their hand in the pocket of the ticket buyer well before a fan buys that ticket, everyone has made sure to get their share before you even pay for a ticket, and it is always and will always be this way because of the demand some events have by the purchaser.

Christ even the mob must be envious at times of the way that average Joe is getting his pocket picked by everyone

The U.S. Government has stated they want whistle blowers to come forward if they have concerns about wrongdoing in Government agencies and that is what they want their very own employees and the public to believe and of course they always say how this is about change and transparency.

However the Obama administration has punished more whistle blowers than any other administration in U.S. history. So how can any whistle blower find the courage to come forward when wrong doing has been found when you face the possibility of facing a criminal prosecution?

How does a whistle blower bring forward concerns of wrongdoing to the very government that is prosecuting whistle blowers whom the goverment is supposed to be protecting if they step forward? No whistle blower is going to come forward knowing they will be punished.

This is why sites like Wikileaks are valuable due to the fact that a whistle blower can stick their neck out without their head being chopped off. I am no Assange fan, but I do agree with the principal of why Wikileaks was started.

Their is no way for a whistle blower to bring information forward other than to go to an outside source due to the fear of being prosecuted for bring information forward.

It is sad that the goverment and the people who run it are more concerned with saving face and grifting rather than fixing the mess and corruption that plagues it and makes it so inefficent

The scary thing is that the one reporter was tipped off about being spied on and she didn't believe it when she was told.

The fact that reporter was told she was being spied on is what got this whole mass spying case blown out of the water. If it wasnt for the fact that one reporter was tipped of, none of the media outlets and their reporters would have even known.

How in the world the police were able to convince a Judge and the crown to agree to put this forth to the court in their warrant application is beyond belief and the fact that the methods used to obtain and to turn on and activate the GPS component of the person under surveillance's phone goes far beyond just getting names and phone numbers of calls and goes slightly beyond the police agency involved capabilities.

One would have to belief their was either some type of device/software or other agency like CSIS involved who would have the capabilities to do this unless the Mobile service provider was ordered to do turn on the GPS feature with a warrant and I am skeptical of that, so I believe either this police agency has some toys they aren't disclosing or they got some help from Canada's spy agency CSIS.

The applications and affidavits used to obtain the warrants for each reporter need to be brought to light as well as the software/devices involved in the tracking and tracing of the calls and messages and whether any other agencies that were involved in enabling and activating the GPS component of each reporters phone.

There is something very very fishy about how this took place and who is all involved, this is more than a phone tap warrant in my opinion

Nielsen whole model is based on stats for the /Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers so they can sell air time to advertisers in line with the programs they have airing on their respective platforms via the numbers of viewers tuning in (or out)

The rub is that Nielsen metodolgy is based ondata from uers it picks out to be it's chosen household to send data back to it, sounds simple and fool proof right? Wrong! Even though Nioelsen gets the data there is nothing stopping someone from manipulating the data sent to Nielsen, and you have to remember Nielsen takes that data from it's chosen testers and then uses it to calculate that actual user data into a formula to come up with it's results.

Now there is known cases were the data some of Nielsen's testers have sent back cause a shows viewership numbers to go up thru manipulation, case in point involving Bubba The Love Sponge Clem's radio show ( link to story below )

So how does anyone really know if the supposed ratings really reflect the true numbers Nielsen and the various entities of /Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers base their viewrship programming are accurate? Your average citizen isnt really going to care unless a show they like watching is facing cancellation, otherwise the viewer doesnt give a toot.

The Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers care about what the numbers are becuase that is what they are selling to the buyers of ad time and what those spots are worth based on the viwership of said program and of course the time it on.

So There is a little more collusion going on between the Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers and Nielsen then what we ar led to believe IMHO. Each has a vested interest in making sure those numbers are high as possible to keep revenue streams as high as possible.

If one person can manipluate the ratings and Nielsen doesnt catch it, then there is nothing to say that more arent doing this and that puts the ratings Nielsen puts forth in their reports are really a true measure of what real viewership to a program is.

Of course the Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers dont want bad numbers to be reported, it effects the money they get when buyers seek to buy an ad spot on a given shows time spot. No Buyers is going to spend any more money than they have to if a programs numbers are down, they are going to want that spot cheaper since the numbers of viewers/listeners is down.

The Ad industry spends a ton of money to get their ad at a specific time heard/watched to audiences for what they believe to be fair for the time slot and program, but the Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers dont want ad buyers to know how much cord cutting has gutted their viewership.

The NFL is a prime example of programming that has faced a downturn in viewership, and the price they are getting from ad buyers is still high but no where near as high as it once was and is still falling due to declining viewership.

So am I suprissed that the Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers are putting pressure on keeping negative information on viewership/ subscriber loss to a minimum, not at all.

The new era of ways that people can get the various forms of media and the advances in those platforms are the furture, the /Networks/Cable/PayTV/Satellite providers/ Music and movie industry are loathe to give us even a nicel of the ways they have had control and have been able to wring every nickel they can while they can and will do what ever they can to keep things staus quo